Who do you want​to be for Halloween?

What do people most want to be this year? Princess Leia reigns in my home state of Utah, but on a national scale she is no match for Wonder Woman. Nationally, poor Leia didn’t even make the top 22.

Click on the charts below to enlarge. I’ll leave it to you to infer or not what our choices reveal about people in your own state and people in the U.S. in general. Try not to wax too Freudian. Sometimes a magic lasso is just a magic lasso.

Why I am for PC speech,​caveats notwithstanding

SOME YEARS AGO it was my misfortune to be acquainted with a 20-year-old who, often in front of his mother, used “you woman” as an insult directed at men. One day I said to him, in front of his mother, “I believe your mom is a woman. How is that an insult?” By way of reply, he invited me to engage myself in sexual intercourse. I understood him better when, years later, I happened upon a book about psychopathy. Of the 10 symptoms the authors listed, he displayed 15.

As for us non-psychopaths, most of us prefer not to say hurtful things when we needn’t. That’s why we train our children not to point and bellow, “That person is fat.” It’s why we’re mortified when the wrong person overhears what was intended as a private remark.

“Smile when you say that. Better yet, don’t say that.”

We call that kind of consideration manners and common decency. Were it not for the negative connotation, we might equally call it political correctness. But the negative connotation exists and, as connotations go, this one is powerful. It is not a little ironic that in some circles political correctness is treated as politically incorrect.​The negative connotation is not terribly hard to understand. For one thing, none of us likes to be corrected. The less kind the correction, the less we like it. For another, while the offense of “that person is fat” is universally understood, it’s not so easy to understand why a word with a history of acceptability in our own culture is suddenly to be avoided the moment another culture says, “We don’t like that.” Nor is it easy to understand the need to abandon a once-acceptable term when it begins to take on a new, unacceptable meaning.*

​Yet attention to the effect of words on people coming from a different frame of reference moves society, albeit sometimes kicking and screaming, in a positive direction. Empathy, the art of identifying with what’s going on in someone else’s head, is a worthy talent to acquire and grow.

To be sure, sometimes PC speech is carried too far. Sometimes it is used to bully. Sometimes it is ambiguous, deceptive, excessively euphemistic. These are not arguments against PC speech. They are arguments against carrying it too far, against using it to bully, and against ambiguity, deception, and excessive euphemism.

The usual objections to PC speech do not hold up well. Take the fellow I know who frowned and lamented, “It’s getting to the point where you can’t disparage any group anymore.” That’s a bad thing? Or another who told me he resented having to “think so much” before opening his mouth. That, too, is a bad thing? Take my friends who, when I pointed out that a certain phrase was in fact a racial slur, apologized and pledged never again to use it. Ha, ha, just kidding. They launched into a diatribe on how “They” shouldn’t be so sensitive. Why not “We” shouldn’t be so insensitive? Or take those who reply, “lighten up,” “it was just a joke,” or “you don’t have to get so upset about it.” These knee-jerk defenses born of wounded pride are understandable, but they need to go. The more constructive reaction is to pause, think, and, where needed, apologize and make a mental note to do better.

I recall being corrected, not kindly, upon using what I theretofore did not know was a sexist term. To add to my humiliation, the colleague doing the correcting disliked me (which went both ways) and sought at every turn to sabotage my career (which did not). Trouble is, her correcting me was called for, and I have avoided the term ever since. I contented myself with finding other reasons not to like her, which abounded.

​—Steve Cuno

* It’s important not to fall prey to the Genetic Fallacy, that of holding to what a word once meant but no longer means. These days it’s not a good idea to refer to laymen as idiots. On the other hand, the former racial slur Samaritan has become quite the compliment.

What say ye of Seth Godin? ​Whom say ye that he is?

During Q&A after I spoke for the first time at the The Amaz!ng Meeting (TAM) of the James Randi Educational Foundation, a fellow asked me what I thought of rising marketing icon Seth Godin. The fellow added, “I think he’s full of shit.” I admitted that I hadn’t yet read Godin. Upon my return home, I decided it was high time to become acquainted with him.

It didn’t take long to figure him out, nor to understand his immense popularity. A master of the deepity, he excels at dressing clichés in trendy new clothes to make himself appear profound. Readers who don’t want to think things through are his rightful prey. Ironically, this advocate of delivering value—whatever that means—largely delivers naught but empty, useless, feel-good fluff for marketers. Caveat emptor.

In short, I agree with the fellow at TAM, who said it more succinctly than I just did.

To his credit, Mr. Godin knows his market. His fans get what they deserve, which is no more than they demand.

Do not retain expertise ​only to overrule it

LAST WEEK I recommended to a prospective client that we not work together. I am not given to saying no to potential revenue, so you may wonder what I was thinking. ​

I have learned, the hard way, not to accept prospective clients who think they know better than I. This is not to say that they don’t know better. They indeed may. Either way, the result will be a compromised project, with both sides taking credit for good outcomes and placing blame for bad ones. I knew that I would inevitably lose money due to endless, needless revisions, and to time spent explaining every choice—only to be overruled anyway.

There’s nothing wrong with telling a chef how you prefer your steak, but don’t presume to tell a chef how cooking should be done. Let the chef chef, or stay home and do your own cooking.

Two panels explain how direct mail still works in an online world

This fellow showed integrity​despite the high cost

​Not long ago at a convention I met a man who had just abandoned his career of 16 years. It had meant kissing goodbye two advanced degrees, a solid income, not a little community status, and considerable professional recognition.

He made this drastic change after coming to realize that the company he worked for did not and could not deliver what it promised in return for people’s money.

To utter the words I was wrong is hard for any human with an ego, which is any human. When uttering I was wrong means giving up a successful career it can be all but impossible. The greater the investment in a round hole, the more incentive there is to grind down the edges of square facts to make them fit.

The grinding process isn’t necessarily conscious. Many people are unaware that they work for a questionable organization, or that they market a questionable product. Fully indoctrinated, they are honest, fierce defenders.

Sometimes it is quite conscious. Some knowingly flimflam and don’t give a damn. They hide behind caveat emptor, as if Latin makes ripping people off okay.

I feel for those who, having begun to suspect that all is not well, are stewing over what to do about it. To resign a client whose products don’t perform as claimed is one thing; to resign your whole career is quite another. More than once, I have wondered if I could have done what the fellow I met at the convention did. His willingness to examine and weigh facts was no small thing. His acknowledging where the facts led was bigger. That he felt he no choice but to change careers? Huge.